Faculty Book: Stanley Renshon

Stanley Renshon and Peter Suedfeld

Understanding the Bush Doctrine: Psychology and Strategy in an Age of Terrorism (Routledge, 2007)

In Understanding the Bush Doctrine: Psychology and Strategy in the Age of Terrorism, leading scholars of U.S. foreign policy, international relations, and political psychology examine one of the most consequential and controversial statements of national security policy in contemporary American history. Unlike other books which focus only on unilateralism or preventive war, this volume provides a comprehensive framework with which to analyze the Bush Doctrine by identifying five central and interrelated elements of the doctrine—American preeminence, assertive realism, strategic stand-apart alliances, selective multilateralism, and democratic transformation. The essays in the volume examine the Doctrine in terms of these five key elements. Given its centrality to American national security, and the fact that the effects of it are likely to be felt well into the twenty-first century, Understanding the Bush Doctrine will provide a critically balanced and pointed assessment of the Bush Doctrine and its premises, as well as a fair appraisal of its implications and prospects. Stanley Renshon is a professor of political science at Lehman College and the Graduate Center and a certified psychoanalyst.